Introduction to African American Studies II
Spring 2015
014:112
Eng 209 MW: 2:30-3:50; 1:00-2:20
Course Description
This course explores the historical and psychological impacts of the American experience on
people of African descent in the United States, from the end of the Civil War to the present.
Together, we will explore the intersections of the “color-line,” as W.E.B. Du Bois called it, with the
American ideals of freedom, and democracy. We will explore the impacts of race and racial
prejudice on people of African descent as they made their way out of slavery and into a society
that struggles to embrace them equally. We will consider several questions related to this
journey. Specifically, we will think about what freedom and democracy have meant to African
American people in the United States, and the ways that they have creatively expressed these
meanings over the course of a century.
Course Objectives
At the end of this semester, you will:
1. Have a basic understanding of the ways in which the events following the American Civil
War shaped the African American struggle for social, economic and political equality during
the twentieth century.
2. Use your textbook, scholarly essays, and primary sources, to think critically about the
African American experience from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth-first
century.
3. Consider the psychological impacts of race and racial prejudice on African Americans after
the Civil War and into the present.
4. Identify the major strategies African Americans employed post-Emancipation to undermine
social and political oppression at the turn of the twentieth century, during two major World
Wars and in contemporary times.
5. Identify the basic components of African American Literature.
6. Discuss and debate the importance of black literary expression to modern understandings
of the African American experience and American race relations.
7. Evaluate and discuss the shifting meanings of freedom, equality, and national identity to
African Americans from the late nineteenth century to the twenty-first.
8. Discuss and debate issues of race, gender and identity as we think collectively about the
contributions of African Americans to modern American society.
Sanitation Worker Strike, Memphis
Tenn. 1968
Instructor: L. Hunter
How to contact me:
Email:
[email protected]
[email protected] (please CC all
messages and assignments here.)
Office & Office Hours:
Conklin rm. 326
MW: 11:00-12:30
Required Texts:
Mia Bay, Deborah G. White, Waldo E. Martin
Freedom on My Mind: A History of African
Americans Vol. 2 (New York: Bedford St.
Martin’s, 2013)
Toni Morrison Playing in the Dark:
Whiteness and the Literary
Imagination (New York: Vintage, 1992)
Course Requirements
Short informal Paper Assignments: You are
responsible for two short reading response
papers this semester. The first paper
requires you to analyze a primary source
taken your main textbook. Your second
writing assignment requires you to critically
analyze and evaluate a given primary source
related to the Black Psychology unit. Due
dates are listed in the course schedule
below.
“Die-in” protest, Marquette
University 2014
Grading Scale
Grading in this course is based on a
raw points scale:
Short Papers (10 points)
Formal Paper (15 points)
Quizzes (20 points)
Exams (35 points)
Presentation (10 points)
Individual Project Grade (5 points)
Participation (5 points)
Total points possible (100)
Longer formal Paper Assignment: This
semester you will write one formal book
review essay on a classic black novel from a
given list. Within your essay, you will engage
the literary theories of either Toni Morrison or
Henry Louis Gates covered in class. Detailed
guidelines for this assignment are available on
blackboard, but we will discuss it in detail as
the due date approaches. You must submit
all papers in either APA or Chicago
format with the honor pledge written or
typed on it. I also ask that you all
submit one electronic, and one hard
copy of every assignment. Failure to
complete your papers on time will result in an
overall lower grade.
Quizzes: You will take four quizzes over the
course of the semester, some will be
announced, others will not, please make sure
you have read for each class so that you are
prepared to demonstrate your understanding
of the major trends and events that we discuss
throughout the semester. Note: If you miss
a quiz for any reason, you must make it
up within two class sessions. After this
time, you will lose the opportunity –
except in cases of proven medical
emergency. You cannot re-take a missed
pop quiz.
and ideas we discuss together each week, and
your ability to analytically apply those concepts
and ideas to the present. Please see the reading
schedule below for the dates of both.
Participation: Consistent participation in this
course is vital to excelling in it, and thoughtful,
open conversations are the only ways to keep
it interesting. To ensure this, we must each
bring ourselves to every conversation. We
must each question, challenge, critique and
consider every point offered in class if we are
to walk away from this semester with a strong
command of the major issues that shape early
African American history. Accomplishing this
for all of us will mean active participation in
class dialogue and spirited involvement in the
following activity:
The People’s Campaign – Beginning in week
three of this semester, you will sign up to
participate in a group project, in which you will
create a public awareness campaign with
approximately 5-6 of your classmates. This
activity requires each group to organize a faux
public campaign that creatively discusses and
resolves an issue the group identifies within
the topic you collectively choose. You will
make your choices from a selection of broad
topics I will present to the class during week
two. Once each group has been notified of
their team members, you will begin to
collaborate on the issue you want to bring to
the public forum and your proposal to alleviate
the problems it creates. In the last several
weeks of class, each group will take turns
presenting their projects. A detailed guideline
for this exercise is available on blackboard.
Exams: You will complete two examinations in
this course. Each test will require you to
demonstrate your understanding of the concepts
2
Evaluations & Course Policies
Evaluation: A key element aspect of your experience in this class will involve the instructor's evaluation of your progress in
the course, with the course materials. As part of each of the instructor's assessment of your coursework, the following
elements will be considered where applicable with each of the course assignments noted above.

How effectively you develop your arguments in clear and coherent texts, as well as in oral communication, to produce an informed analysis
of the materials with which you have been presented.
 How effectively you grasp the differing ways to read a variety of texts and cultural artifacts, and then produce an informed analysis of
them. The evaluation will also include assessing your understanding of the connections among texts within given disciplines, and the
similarities and distinctions between texts from different disciplines.
 How successfully you discuss your ideas individually and collectively in class, informally address in writing the information which you are
presented in your responses to readings, and how you more formally engage these ideas in longer written work, as well as the midterm
and final examinations.
 How you creatively produce ideas and texts in response to each other through the debates and the one-on-one conversation sessions.
 How you employ basic methods and methodologies employed in the humanities and social sciences. How well you identify, discuss and
analyze interactions between people from a range of political, social, cultural, racial, ethnic, and gendered groups.

How well you understand and address the relationship between the course materials and the defining social, political, cultural, and
intellectual questions of your own time, in both historical and historical perspectives.
Attendance & punctuality: Besides active participation, being in class is a key component to excelling in this course. Understandably, there
will be times when each of us may be late or absent. In this case, let’s agree to keep each other posted at least 24 hours AHEAD of time when we
can. If this is not possible, and your late attendance or absence is not due to an emergency, it will count against you. Three incidences of lateness
will equal one absence; each unexcused absence after this will lower your final grade by one half grade. Any student who misses eight or more
sessions through any combination of excused and unexcused absences will not earn credit in this class. Such students should withdraw to avoid
getting an F.
Policy on Academic Integrity (Cheating and Plagiarism): Rutgers University treats cheating and plagiarism as serious offenses. The
standard minimum penalties for students who cheat or plagiarize include failure of the course, disciplinary probation, and a formal warning that
further cheating will be grounds for expulsion from the University. You are REQUIRED to insert an academic integrity pledge on ALL of your
submitted work this semester. The pledge should read as follows: “On My honor I have neither received nor given any
unauthorized assistance on this assignment.”
Resources & Notes on Success
Extra Credit: This semester you will have two extra credit opportunities, from which you can only choose ONE. One of these opportunities
will offer you the opportunity to tour Harlem’s historic downtown areas for a fee of $20. The other is an opportunity to participate in Rutgers’
annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture series during the month of February. Both assignments are optional, please see me if you intend on
completing one.
Accommodations: Rutgers University provides accommodations and/or modifications to any student who has been deemed eligible for
special services, in order to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to participate in all Rutgers programs, services, and activities.
Students with disabilities, including learning disabilities, requiring assistance and/or accommodation should speak with Disability Services in a
timely manner.
Additional notes: Writing is critical in this course and much of what you will be writing about will require you to engage issues of race,
gender, class, sexuality, and morality in a sophisticated way. In light of this, I encourage you to utilize me as a resource and a sounding board
in addition to any online resources, the library and the writing center. Additionally, feel free to send me drafts of assignments and ask me
questions via email.
3
Week
Dates
Topic
What to Read
Jan
21
1
Introduction to the course
2
Reconstruction & the
Challenges Ahead, 18801915
Jan. 26
Jan 28
3
Feb 2
Jim Crow in the Twentieth
Century, 1915-1940
What’s Due
Please confirm
your email
address
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 8 pp. 376-390 & DOCUMENTS
pp.409-413
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 8 pp. 390-408 & DOCUMENTS
pp.415-418
Blackboard Readings: Blackboard Readings: Booker T.
Washington “The Atlanta Compromise Speech”
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 9 pp. 430-445 & DOCUMENTS
pp.472-74
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 9 pp. 445-464
Blackboard Reading: W.E.B. Du Bois “Of Mr. Booker T.
Washington and Others” & Booker T. Washington on the
Reaction to his Atlanta Compromise Speech
Feb 4
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 10 pp. 492-510
4
5
Feb 9
Blackboard Reading: Excerpts’ from W.E.B. DuBois’s Brownie’s
Book for Children
Feb 11
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 10 pp. 510-526 Blackboard
Readings: Marita Bonner’s “On Being Young – A Woman – and
Colored” & Claude McKay “If We Must Die”
Reading Response
due today
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 11 pp. 550-560 & VISUAL
DOCUMENTS pp. 593-601
Review Sheet
posted on
Blackboard
Feb 16
Early Civil Rights Strategies
& the “Double V” – 19391948
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 12 pp. 604-625
Feb 18
6
7
Feb 23
MIDTERM REVIEW
Feb 25
MIDTERM EXAM
MIDTERM EXAM
Mar 2
African American Psychology:
introduction
Blackboard Reading: African American Psychology Ch. 1 pp.3-18
“We People Who Are Darker
than Blue:” Race, community
and Identity
Blackboard Readings: African American Psychology Ch. 2 pp.
31-50
Blackboard Readings: African American Psychology Ch. 4 pp.
103-120 & Jacquelin Rahman “The N-Word: It’s History and Use
in the African American Community,” Journal of English
Linguistics Vol. 40 No. 137 (July 2011)
Mar 4
8
Mar 9
MIDTERM REVIEW DAY
4
Blackboard Reading: African American Psychology Ch. 5 pp.
137-167
Mar 11
9
SPRING BREAK – NO CLASSES
Mar 16
Mar 18
10
Mar 23
SPRING BREAK – NO CLASSES
Is self love the first law of
preservation? Black identity
and Body Image
Mar 30
Masculinity in Black America
-------Second Reading
Response due
today
Blackboard Readings: Satoshi Kanazawa “Why Are Black
Women Less Physically Attractive than Other Women?” in
Psychology Today (2011)
Blackboard Readings: Excerpts from Why are All the Black Kids
Mar 25
11
Blackboard Readings: Excerpts from Ain’t Nobody Worrying:
--------
Black Psychology & Education
Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Blackboard Readings: Excerpts from Why are All the Black Kids
Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Apr 1
The Multiple Meanings of
12
Apr 6
Freedom & Considering Black
Literary Expression, 19631975
13
14
15
16
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 12 pp. 625-635; Ch. 13 pp.662671
*Optional Read: See Black Fire Folder*
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 13 pp. 671-693 & Playing in the
Dark Preface & Excerpts from Signifying Monkey
Apr 8
PRESENTATION 1
PRESENTATION 2
PRESENTATION 3
Read: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 14 pp. 720- 750 & Blackboard
Readings: See Black Lit Folder 1
PRESENTATION 4
Apr 15
Read: Playing in the Dark Ch.1 & Blackboard Reading: See Black
Lit Folder 2
PRESENTATION 5
Apr 20
Read: Playing in the Dark Ch. 2 & Blackboard Reading: See
Excerpts from Signifying Monkey
PRESENTATION 6
Book Review Due
Apr 22
Skim: Freedom on My Mind Ch. 15 Blackboard Readings:
Blackwell, Jacqueline A. "African-American Literature and
"Post-Racial" America. Or, You Know, Not." Inquiry 16, no. 1
(March 2011)
PRESENTATION 7
Apr 27
Blackboard Readings: See Black Lit Folder 3
PRESENTATION 8
Review Sheet
posted on
Blackboard
Apr 29
Blackboard Reading: Marshall, Elizabeth, Staples, Jeanine;
Gibson Simone “Ghetto fabulous: reading black adolescent
femininity in contemporary urban street fiction” Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol. 53 no. 1 (Sept. 2009)
May 4
Final Exam Review
Apr 13
Telling Our Own Stories cont.
–1968-2000
Black Narratives in the “Age
of Obama,” 2000-present
5
17
May 6
READING DAY
----------
May 11
FINAL EXAM May 11, 2015 3:00-6:00 pm
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6